I am 18 years old, and what went down last May still plays in my head like a movie I cannot stop rewatching. You know those moments that shift everything, where you finally understand what it really means to protect the people who protected you first? This is that story. My mother, Emma, became a parent at the very young age of 17. She gave up her entire adolescence for me, including the prom she had dreamed about since middle school. Mom gave up her dream so I could exist. I figured the least I could do was give her one back.
Mom found out she was pregnant during her junior year of high school. The guy who got her pregnant vanished the second she told him the news. There was no goodbye, no child support, and no curiosity about whether I would inherit his eyes or his laugh. Mom faced everything completely alone after that. College applications went into the trash, and her dream dress stayed in the store. Graduation parties happened without her. She juggled crying babies she babysat for the neighbors, worked graveyard shifts at a local truck stop diner, and cracked open her GED textbooks only after I had finally dozed off for the night.
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